OUR BEST FRIENDS

Tag: animals

Concerned and frightened residents of an Atlanta suburb have created a memorial to a pit bull found hanged from a bridge nearly two months ago.

They’ve covered the guardrail on the overpass with stuffed animals and reward signs in hopes the dog’s killer will be brought to justice.

Volunteers met at the bridge along Kelly Lake Road Saturday and attached hundreds of stuffed animals — mostly dogs — to the handrails.

Police in DeKalb County continue to investigate the case, and a $10,000 reward has been offered for information leading to a suspect, according to WSB-TV in Atlanta.

A woman walking her 2-year-old son to day care found the dog hanging by a chain from the bridge on May 20.

Many residents believe the killer lives in their neighborhood.

“You don’t have to be a dog lover or even have pets to understand what a vicious crime this was committed right here across the street from where people live, right next door,” explained Johanna Falber, who organized the event.

Falber said the group has been posting reward signs on the bridge, but someone keeps removing them.

“It’s about a vicious killer that’s out here somewhere, that keeps ripping down our signs so they’re not caught,” Falbert said. “We want attention. We want this to stop. We want that dog killer found.”

Police described the dog as a brown and white, female pit bull.

Anyone with information about the dog or the crime can call the police tip line at 404-294-2645.

A rescued black Lab mix whose skin condition was so bad a local shelter considered putting him down has found a permanent home after having his mysterious ailment diagnosed.

The dog — named Adam, ironically enough — is allergic to humans.

Adam was pulled from a shelter by Lucky Dog Rescue in Indianapolis last July, but it took a while for vets to determine what was causing his fur to fall out.

“When we first saw him, he looked just absolutely miserable,” Lucky Dog president Robin Herman told ABC’s Good Morning America. ”He felt like Vaseline. Reddish-pinkish fluid would just ooze out of his skin.”

The rescue center, which was working with Indianapolis’ Animal Medical Center, originally believed that Adam, who was one-a-half at the time, had flea dermatitis.

Months went by — he spent at least six of them wearing a cone — and his condition didn’t get better.

But in late October, Dr. Rachel Anderson, a veterinarian from the medical center, ordered some allergy tests, and was shocked by the results.

“It was a really interesting phone call,” Herman said. “She was like, ‘You’re not going to believe what he’s allergic to! It’s really remarkable, he’s allergic to humans the same way some people are allergic to dogs and cats.”

Specifically, the blood tests showed Adam is allergic to human dander, as well as cat dander, some plants, walnuts and some insects like houseflies and cockroaches.

After news first broke about Adam’s condition, people from as far away as Australia and the U.K. contacted the center either with adoption inquiries or donations, Herman said.

But Adam ended up finding a permanent home with the center employee who spent the last year caring for him, Beth Weber, who now makes sure he gets the proper medications and gives him baths every three days with a different kind of soap every other time.

He’s also seeing a specialist at the Animal Dermatology Clinic in Indianapolis.

“He’s come such a long way,” Herman said. “… All his fur is back except for a little spot on his butt and tail. Though he’s going to be on medications for the rest of his life … he’s now on the road to full recovery and health.”

A proposal that would have allowed leashed dogs — leashed dogs! — at all public parks in Butte appears all but dead.

While Butte-Silver Bow County commissioners endorsed the idea of looking at a second dog park, they didn’t budge Wednesday night when it came to a proposal to alter the local law that bans dogs — even those on leashes — in all of the other parks in Butte.

Because, as one commissioner said, “dogs don’t belong in parks.”

Even in a town as stuck in the past as Butte — the “richest hill on earth,” the home of our good friend, the Auditor — that kind of thinking can only be described as medieval.

The council endorsed a measure 7-4 Wednesday night that would open the door for future designated dog park areas, like the one that exists at Skyline Park on Butte’s east side, but the local law that bans all dogs in all other parks appears likely to stay in place for now, the Montana Standard reported today.

But it hasn’t acted on a broader proposal to allow leashed dogs in all parks, on public trails and in open spaces.

Commissioner John Sorich moved that the council reject that proposal but leave open the possibility of having other designated dog areas.

“I too love dogs,” Sorich said. “I have a 10-week-old puppy I’m trying to train, but I don’t believe they belong in parks. I don’t have a problem with walking trails.”

Other commissioners backing the ban say many dogs are mean, and leave messes behind them.

“We spent a long time getting dogs out of parks in Butte-Silver Bow County, and a large majority (of people) don’t want to go back,” Commissioner Jim Fisher said. “I’m a messenger for the people, and they are telling me no dogs in parks.”

Ordinances ban dogs from all parks in the county, but not from public trails.

Commissioner Bill Andersen said dogs are an important part of many people’s lives and should be allowed in more parks.

“I like my dog better than most people,” he said.

Kelley Christensen, the county’s special events coordinator, also spoke in favor of the proposal to open parks up to dogs, saying many people have dogs and they should be welcome in more parks.

“We feel this is giving our community a way to walk out in nature with their pets,” she said.

Opening parks in the county to leashed dogs was part of a proposal put forth by Parks Director E. Jay Ellington. He said the ban and large “no dogs allowed” posted at parks signs sent an unwelcome message about Butte.

Ellington recently announced he was leaving Butte to take a parks job in Texas.

In her defense, forethought and consequences are concepts that may not be fully understood by Jenelle Evans.

That would explain, among other things, why the star of this season’s “Teen Mom 2″ on MTV let her dog play with lit fireworks, videotaped it, posted it on social media and says she would do it again — except maybe for the posting on social media part.

The homemade video, which she has since deleted, showed the reality TV star tossing a lit firework into her yard as a voice seems to encourage her dog, Jax, to fetch it.

Some reports say the voice is that of her son, Jace, who Evans gave birth to at age 16.

After she posted the video, animal lovers gave Evans a richly deserved verbal pounding, and she took it down.

A snippet of the video aired on TMZ, along with an interview with Evans, who defended her actions by saying she has seen similar footage of animals playing with fireworks on “America’s Funniest Home Videos.”

That, she said, makes it acceptable.

She told TMZ she was not encouraging the dog to go after the firework, and that the incident has been blown out of proportion.

“Anything I do is going to be so such a big deal to everyone else, because I’m on TV. If I wasn’t on TV you guys wouldn’t give a shit right now.”

“Teen Mom” is a spin-off of the MTV documentary series “16 & Pregnant.”

It follows the stories of four girls from the first season of 16 & Pregnant who are “navigating the bumpy terrain of adolescence, growing pains, and coming of age — all while facing the responsibility of being a young mother.”

Pet food maker Stella & Chewy’s is recalling some of its products because a routine test found Listeria in a sample of its chicken freeze-dried dinner patties for dogs.

On Thursday, Stella & Chewy’s was notified by the Maryland Department of Agriculture (MDA) that it issued a stop sale order on a single lot of Chewy’s Chicken Freeze-Dried Dinner Patties after monocytogenes were detected in the product.

Listeria can cause serious illness and even death in children, the frail and the elderly. Healthy people may suffer flu-like symptoms, such as high fever, headache, nausea and diarrhea.

The Milwaukee-based company said there have been no reported pet or human illnesses.

A complete list of recalled products can be found on the pet food company’s website.

As a precautionary measure, the company says, it is voluntarily recalling all products from Lot # 111-15 including:

However well-intended, this segment from Wednesday’s Jimmy Kimmel Live serves to intensify our growing disdain with the World’s Ugliest Dog Contest — for turning what was originally a sweet idea into a circus.

Here, Quasi Modo, who won the annual competition last weekend, visits Jimmy Kimmel Live to receive a “makeover” from fashion expert Carson Kressley (of “Queer Eye For The Straight Guy” fame).

As if the humiliation of competing for the title wasn’t enough.

The selection of Quasi, whose deformity results from being born without some vertabrae, wasn’t quite as disturbing as the choice of last year’s winner — whose appearance resulted from being abused earlier in life — but it’s another sign that the contest, which is supposedly all about compassion, has become even more about ratings.

Just maybe, the contest has become the ugliest beast of all.

Kressley gives the dog a “complete makeover” that includes a spa session, mani/pedi, accessories (made of fur no less) and a wig.

Quasi, a patient soul, seems to tolerate all the silly human behavior — and more than a few snide comments.

Kimmel, after the reveal, called Quasi’s new look “a cross between Honey Boo Boo and a hooker.”

I don’t think he realized just how fitting an analogy that was — maybe not so much for Quasi, but definitely for the contest, and for the news media that continues eat it up without bothering to sniff first.